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    Bad Teacher

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

    The concept for “Bad Teacher” might not be terribly original, but it’s a good one and while it’s not often laugh-out-loud funny, the movie is amusing and consistently entertaining. Cameron Diaz plays Elizabeth, a middle school teacher who is forced out of retirement when her rich fiancé discovers she is only seeing him so that she can spend all of his money. She didn’t care for teaching before but now she has even less desire to do so. Elizabeth comes up with a plan: get breast implants to increase her chances of scoring a rich stud, a plan that seems even more promising when she meets Scott, a wealthy substitute teacher. While Elizabeth does anything she can to make up the $9,000 she needs to get her new boobs, she has to dodge the radar of Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch) a goody-two-shoes teacher that’s onto her while rejecting the gym teacher’s advances (Jason Segel as Russel)

    The movie’s strongest points are the characters. Casting Cameron Diaz as an attractive but completely disinterested teacher who frequently comes to class hung-over is an excellent choice. She’s still super hot when she goes the extra mile to raise funds during the school’s car wash, but she also convincingly plays the dirty gold digger who barely managed to crawl out of bed after a night of heavy flirting at the bar. Unlike a lot of starlets in Hollywood who can’t convincingly play someone nasty, she’s great in the role. Her character is written to be an awful, irresponsible person but never quite crosses that line into someone you dislike. You’re constantly interested in seeing what her next trick will be and that won’t happen if she gets caught red-handed by that nosy Amy. I found it refreshing to see the film stick to its guns. A timid picture would have the teacher eventually warm up to the students, learn that it’s important to give them a good education and be a good person in the end, but that’s not really the case here. Sure she warms up to the students a bit, but that’s only because she decides that the easiest way to afford her surgery is to earn a bonus (how she manages to get her students to score highest on the standardized tests, that’s a whole other story) I like the reversal that’s happening. Amy plays a foil to Elizabeth. Normally you would be cheering for her but in this case; she’s just a little too enthusiastic about her teaching and comes up as cheesy and annoying. Scott is a guy that’s handsome and rich, but his personality is basically a block of wood, a great counter to the significantly poorer and less handsome Jason Segel, who’s a much better match for Elizabeth but doesn’t have any of the qualities she’s looking for.

    The one area the film could’ve improved on is the humor; the movie isn’t quite as funny as it could have been and that there are a few characters that either come into play out of nowhere (like Elizabeth’s roommate) or are only on the screen when there’s a joke for them (Lynn) These aren’t huge flaws but I can’t help feeling that what we have here is a film that is good, instead of being great like it had the potential to be. Nonetheless, this is a fun comedy. I say check it out, it’ll be a nice counter to any of those tacky “inspired teacher” movies. (Unrated version on Dvd, November 30, 2013)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  16.9.2016 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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